Ex-wife: Walker Spied To Save Failing Business

June 6, 1985|By Los Angeles Times

WEST DENNIS, MASS. — The former wife of John A. Walker Jr. said Wednesday that he began spying for the Soviet Union in the late 1960s to get money to help a failing restaurant and bar in which he had invested.

Through the years that followed, including almost a decade of their 19- year marriage, Walker continued to sell U.S. military secrets to Soviet agents for ''well over $100,000,'' Barbara Crowley Walker told the Los Angeles Times.

Mrs. Walker's tip to the FBI about her former husband led authorities to what they call the largest espionage ring in decades. Interviewed in her apartment in this Cape Cod resort town, she said she agonized for years before going to the FBI late last November with her story.

She said she never would have gone to the authorities if she had known that her youngest child, Michael, would be caught in the FBI's widening net and charged with espionage along with his father.

''I love Michael so much,'' Mrs. Walker said of her only son, a 22-year- old sailor. ''I love my country, but I never could have brought myself to do it if I had known he was part of this thing. I was devastated when I heard Michael was involved.''

John Walker, a 47-year-old retired Navy communications specialist, was arrested May 20 after FBI agents said he tried to deliver to a Soviet agent classified documents he had received from Michael, who served on the aircraft carrier Nimitz. John Walker's 50-year-old brother, Arthur, and a California man described as John Walker's best friend also have been arrested and charged with espionage.

John Walker and his son pleaded not guilty to the charges Tuesday.

Although she insisted she knew nothing of Michael's alleged role, Mrs. Walker said she had learned from her daughter Laura that John Walker had tried to enlist Laura as a spy in 1979 while the daughter was an Army communications operator stationed at Fort Polk, La. ''Laura told me about it soon after it happened,'' she said. She would not give other details or say where her 25- year-old daughter now lives.

Federal authorities have said evidence provided by Mrs. Walker and Laura was instrumental in cracking what they have described in affidavits as a spy ring whose activities reached deep into U.S. naval operations worldwide, especially involving sensitive communications, for as far back as 20 years.

Mrs. Walker said she had known of her husband's espionage activities since the late 1960s and that one day she had picked up the telephone in their Norfolk, Va., home to alert the FBI.

''But I just couldn't make the call,'' she said. ''I thought, 'How can I possibly survive with four kids if John is taken away?' ''

But several months ago -- more than eight years after their marriage ended in divorce -- Mrs. Walker said she sought out FBI agents in nearby Hyannis, Mass., to tell them of John Walker's activities.

''I wanted to protect my children,'' she said. ''Was I seeking vengeance? Well, a part of me wanted to see him get what he deserved.''

Mrs. Walker, 47, said she agreed to the interview in hopes of halting the ''bothersome attention'' focused on her by the media since the case became public last month.

''Even now,'' she said, ''some camera crews are focusing on my windows from across the street.''

She said she believed the need for money to prop up his investment in a restaurant and bar in South Carolina -- a business that she said eventually folded -- prompted John Walker to begin spying for the Soviets.

''But he also loved the glamour of being a spy,'' she said. ''He loved being one step ahead of other people -- of walking down the street and knowing something no one else knew.''

She described Arthur Walker, her former brother-in-law who is accused of giving Navy secrets to John Walker knowing that they would be delivered to the Soviets, as ''a real sweet guy.''

But she said she believed Arthur's membership in the ring did not result from John's persuasion. ''I won't tell you any more than that,'' she said.

Mrs. Walker, who shares her apartment with her daughter Cynthia and her 8- year-old grandson, Tommy, said her marriage ended in divorce in 1976 because John Walker was a ''domineering, manipulative, self-centered man.

''John was not a caring man,'' she said. ''He was always trying to maneuver and manipulate people, including the kids. But Michael absolutely adored him.''

She said Walker showed little affection for his daughters -- refusing, for instance, to go to one's college graduation -- but devoted all his attention to his son. ''Michael would do anything his father asked of him,'' she said.